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Saturday, January 16, 2016

Elwyn Richardson a creative voice from the past and a challenge for schools today

1950s and in the late 60s authored his inspirational book 'In the Early World' which has beenrecently reprinted.

Once we
found a cassette tape recorder a group of us (all who had been influenced by
Elwyn) sat down to listen. My old friend and I were both recorded on the tape
and we were interested to hear what we all said in 1976.

One thing
stood out. We were all focused on tapping into the child inner world and
helping them explore and express ideas about what was of interest to them.

And at the
end of our listening we all agreed that this emphasis has been lost in
classrooms today and that schooling, by demeaning the personal world of the
learner, had failed too many students. Until children enter formal schooling
their interests dictated their learning but on entering school it is the school’s
curriculum that determine learning and those than can't cope with teacher
determined curriculum begin their unfortunate road to alienation from education.

Imagine technology 40 years ahead

Only a
creative education, such as one demonstrated by Elwyn, can provide an
environment where all students can realize their innate potential. A creative
education needs to reproduce the environment young children are exposed to
before formal schooling and this is all
the more important for students whose early life experiences has not
provided whose early life experience has not provided such a positive learning environment The
kindergarten ( child's garden) movement was established to do just this.

One of Elwyn's students artwork

Elwyn's
presentation was all about contrasting the child centred curriculum he followed
with school curriculum. Elwyn expressed concern about teacher determined
learning objectives. He would be appalled by current standardised approaches to
learning with the emphasis on such
things as learning intentions, success
criteria Any experience a child has (
and this includes teacher presented ideas aimed at capturing student curiosity), he said, can be expressed through words, talk, writing, drawing , art ,
movement, drama and clay. A look at any current classroom, particularly the art
work, shows how much children’s creativity has been massaged by the heavy hand
of the teacher.

New book about Elwyn

The language
arts are at the core of all learning said Elwyn but that the teacher has a
responsibility to ensure whatever is expressed exhibits personal growth. Teachers
need to come alongside the learner to help then refine and define what they are
trying to say. Without such refinement student work can be ‘undisciplined
squads of emotion’ Elwyn, I think, was trying to distance himself from those
who believed teachers just need to motivate students and then leave it up to
them to do whatever they like. Helping students to achieve work of quality is
in itself a form of art and depends on the experience, confidence and skill of
the learner. Respecting the ‘voice’ and identity of each learner is the essence
of ‘personalised learning’. One example given was the tendency for junior
teachers when scribing children’s thoughts to rewrite it to make it more
acceptable and in the process devolve it of imagination and vitality. Children,
he said , soon learn to comply to teachers expectations; for some this is the
beginning of the end..

Elwyn made
the point that when the year begins creative teachers will inherit students who
have been mismanaged. Advice Elwyn gave was to focus on a few students at first
to help them achieve quality results and to see what can be achieved. To get
children to be more expressive encourage them to go back and reconsider some of
their ideas and to resist giving ‘false praise’. In writing, for example, give
credit to ‘minor excellences’. When
student achieve work beyond their expectations in any area of learning the work
said Elwyn quoting Jerome Bruner ‘startles’ – it is this ‘surprise’ that
expresses creativity.

Take
advantage of such things as a child bringing a dead bird to class – Elwyn made
reference to a set of very different drawings of a kingfisher on display. With
such an experience what are the children’s questions and responses. Some might
want to write thoughts, some might want to draw or paint while

Republished by NCER

other might want
to research about kingfishers. As the
year progresses a curriculum will 'emerge' but this does not preclude ideas being
introduced as challenges by the teacher.
Our own project in Taranaki in the 70/80S introduced studies by means of motivating
displays that, as the studies progressed, were complimented by students
expressive and research work and classroom walls were used to display finished work.

An important
point made by Elwyn was that if
learning is not ‘felt’ by students it is not really learnt and not seen in
action. He was particularly critical of much of is imposed on learners. All learning, if it is to be
successful, requires affective and sensory dimensions.

After
listening we all agreed that so much has been lost in past decades and that the
problem of students being disengaged in learning stems from their voices, ideas
and questions being ignore and this is not helped by school curriculums that
fragment learning or place undue emphasis on such things as narrowing effect of National Standards and the destructive use of
ability grouping on the sense of self of the very children who need to develop positive
learning identities..

Abnormal teaching!

The
remainder of the tape outlined a simple but innovative class unit on snail
starting with a display of sea shells and covered students questions, current
and researched ideas, observational drawings, maths based on spirals and
science experiments involving snails pulling weighted carts. Such a unit was in
line with Elwyn’s point of making use of the rich immediate environment and for
students to be seen as artists and scientists.

Quality work Taranaki 76

The tape
concluded with teachers attending expressing how difficult it is to develop
such creative curriculums in their own schools – a problem that is even more
difficult today. Those presenting
(including myself as I had been central to establishing group of teachers to
implement such programmes) suggested solutions. Teachers trying out new ideas
need to be encouraged and to be able to learn through trial and error – the
scientific method in practice. It is important to support each other to combat
the conformist climate of most schools. Many teachers felt the pressure from senior
teachers to conform – a problem that is even more the case today. Teachers
mentioned that inspectors visiting failed to even notice the quality work on
display and focused on administrative requirements.; imposed conformity of
‘best practices’ is worse today.

The thought
of selected ‘best’ principals and teachers to work collaboratively with
clusters of schools is fraught with problems. The collaboration we experienced
in the 70s often went against current school ‘best practices’ and those in
authority from within and without the school.

Elwyn's students making drums

Elwyn
developed his philosophy in an isolated school in Northland and was given
‘permission’ to experiment. He also had access to visiting art advisers who
played vital role in developing and sharing ideas about creative and integrated
education. There were other teachers,
all in rural schools away from authority, developing similar programmes but
Elwyn’s work remains the most important and, due the publication of his book,
still available to teachers today.

The
developments we established in our own province still can be seen in local schools
today and were in past times times recognised by those in authority. In contrast to Elwyn’s isolated approach we
developed whole school approaches.

That was
until the educational reforms known as ‘Tomorrows Schools’ in the 80s when
collaborative approaches were replaced by schools competing with each other.

Taranaki work 1976

The creative
ideas Elwyn was central in developing based on valuing the students’ interests
and personal ideas, and ensuring all students achieve work of quality, are more
relevant than ever.

Snail art Taranaki 1976

If schools
suppress or ignore individual student creativity then many students ( those
without appropriate backgrounds or ‘cultural capital’ that school cater for reasonably well) are
swallowed up in our conformist school system. Students who lose their sense of
creativity or self-worth will end up by making their mark on society all too
often in a destructive way. We need all schools to ensure all students ( and
not just the academic) gain pride in and
confidence from personal achievement and rewarding accomplishment.

‘If American
schools were to take one giant step forward this year towards a better tomorrow
what should it be?’

‘It would be
to let every child be the planner, director of his own education, to allow and
encourage him with the inspiration and guidance of more experienced and expert
people, and as much help as he asked for, to decide what he has to learn, when
he is to learn it, how he is to learn it, and how well he is learning it. It
would make our schools, instead of what they are, which is jails fort children,
into a resource for free and independent learning, which everyone in the
community, of whatever age, could use as much or as little as he wanted.’

‘True
learning- learning that is permanent and useful, that leads to intelligent
actions and further learning- can only arise out of the experience, interests,
and concerns of the learner.’

Tested to oblivion!!

‘Education
is something a person gets for himself, not that which someone else gives him
or does to him.’

It was
thoughts like the above that underpinned the work of Elwyn and our local group
that followed on from Elwyn’s work.

An education
that creates the conditions and provides the necessary help and resources to
develop the gifts and talents of all students should be the purpose of a twenty-first
education system.

We have a
long way to go. The answers are there. All we need is the wit and imagination
to put them into practice. We need to ask how something that begins so well can
end so badly for far too many students resulting in too many students ill equipped
for life in our society.

Elwyn’s
taped talk give us an insight to possible solutions And in our times Sir Ken Robinsons book ‘Creative
Schools’ echoes and elaborates the need
to transform our education from the bottom up.